Review of an 'ambitious, charming oddity' of a sci-fi comedy film

Comedy and science fiction are notoriously difficult genres to combine. And yet Time Travel Is Dangerous pulls it off, with this modestly produced film a delightful British curio that extracts maximum returns from its quirkily assembled, disparate parts. 

Written by director Chris Reading with producers and sisters Hillary and Anna-Elizabeth Shakespeare, the script is a chaotic, Time Bandits-style romp delivered as a deadpan mockumentary. Suffused with a nostalgia for 1980s movies like Back To The Future and more problematic throwbacks such as Weird Science, any sheen or cool is undercut by its equal affection for the creaky, retro optimism of Tomorrow's World.

Despite attracting a top-notch cast of comedy notables, including Stephen Fry sending up his narrator-for-hire eminence with a sparingly deployed voiceover, doing little more than bookending the story yet hitting all the right notes regardless, the film's protagonists are real-life vintage shop owners Ruth Syratt and Megan Stevenson, playing fictionalised versions of themselves with scarcely credible comic timing. 

Seeking fresh stock on their Muswell Hill patch, they chance upon a time machine in the form of a souped-up fairground dodgem car. Instantly, the pair begin a light-fingered spree through the past, with business booming as the shop groans under the weight of authentic ancient artefacts displayed in mint condition. 

However, it's not long before their reckless meddling with time and space has some unintended consequences, not least in attracting the attention of an eccentric society of local inventors, led by Guy Martin's bureaucratic Martin, along with the likes of Sophie Thompson and Tony Way.

They explain to Ruth and Megan the dangers of being transported into the terrible Unreason. This is a mysterious void where lost souls play a head-scratchingly elaborate gambling game to pass away eternity. Appearing amongst these damned are Jane Horrocks, Mark Heap, the voice of Brian Blessed and even The Horne Section, cameoing as a sort of house band in Hell. 

When Megan gets inadvertently trapped in this netherworld, it's up to Ruth and the ragtag band of inventors to try to drag her back. Do the answers lie in cancelled popular science television show The Future Today, which featured Ralph (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) and Valerie (Laura Aikman), plus Johnny Vegas as a belligerent, low-rent robot?

Initially, the mockumentary device feels excessively familiar, a necessary evil to smooth the film's budgetary limitations. However, it's waggishly deployed and tonally fits the characters' blithe disregard for butterfly effects.

Similar to the inventors with their more-or-less effective but highly unsafe invisibility cloaks and rocket boots, Ruth and Megan trespass across time with nary a thought for the consequences. Witnessing historical duels, they sigh about toxic masculinity, then strip the corpses clean for clothing and weapons. Meanwhile, the camera crew indiscreetly traipse behind the main characters into a grubby pub toilet, startling the bloke who's just flushed.  Only Brian Bovell as an older Ralph and his estranged former colleague Robert (Vegas) truly appreciate the dangers of time travel, having seen first-hand the horrors that could be about to be unleashed. 

Cannily, the screenplay goes in for relatively little exposition, grounding its most ridiculous aspects in the mundanity of middle-class London boredom and self-absorption, conscious that the audience knows all the well-trod conventions and cliches of time travel storytelling anyway. 

Amusingly, despite the high-concept premise and potentially catastrophic stakes, the dialogue is dominated by petty squabbling and bickering. The inventors are playing with powerful forces, creating things that might revolutionise the existence of humankind. But they have zero presentation or people skills.

The visual effects are a winning mix of slick-ish graphics, clunky lo-fi props, a smattering of puppets and copious quantities of dry ice. They stretch to a CGI dinosaur and flying van. But a Napoleonic War scene has blatantly been filmed by gatecrashing a battle re-enactment. The general aesthetic goes in for 1980s flourishes of neon, arcade game technology and jumpsuits.

Vegas is on solid form, once again finding his groove as a bitter outcast shat on by life, a recluse scarred by what he's seen but belatedly rediscovering his mojo with the rescue mission. Horrocks is also fun as The Aviator, a deranged Amelia Earhart-type dominating The Game with overbearing threat. Henry, likewise, is well cast as the self-styled leader of the boffins, his grip on power maintained through his incessant demands of adherence to the club rules.

Amid all these famous faces, though, the revelation is Syratt and Stevenson. Ruth and Megan's friendship is a compelling double act of not-quite-equals. The pair's dry, matter-of-fact delivery is augmented by Megan's airy general indifference, which other characters warm to, and Ruth's apparent neediness, which they really don't. 

Syratt conveys such a buttoned-down dowdiness as Ruth, dismissing the romantic advances of Peter (Way), that when an ominous wrinkle in the universe completely transforms her physically and mentally, it's impossible not to get caught up in her infectious new zest for life. To the great irritation of Megan, so used to being the carefree one, the day-to-day running of the shop invariably falls by the wayside, prompting further disaster.

Cartoonishly sketched, the supporting characters are generally one-dimensional and only a few enjoy any sort of personal development. Even when simply jumping between The Future Today recordings and the present day, the plot is a little loose and haphazard. Again, though, that's sort of the nature of the piece. Time Travel Is Dangerous is an ambitious, charming oddity, wringing the most out of a tremendous cast with zip, absurdist inclinations and abundant visual humour.

• Time Travel Is Dangerous is coming to cinemas from tomorrow.

Review date: 27 Mar 2025
Reviewed by: Jay Richardson